This Craft is Minecraft. This Craft is Your Craft.
After listening to the first episode of the "A Pixel Canvas" podcast, I decided to seek out and boldly go where few near-seniors have ever gone - straight to the Minecraft website.
It took me a few minutes to figure out how to navigate the landscape, dig, create blocks and then destroy them, but not long enough to frustrate those with low attention spans.
The problem with Minecraft is simply this: It is so incredibly addictive that you can easily lose yourself playing a game that is at its essence nothing more than a virtual building-block set similar to the wood-block sets many of us used as infants and young children. Perhaps this is why it is so incredibly soothing. The music, too, is soothing, so the entire experience - blue, lightly-clouded sky, verdant fields - is engaging because it becomes a meditative exercise in a pointless activity. It's a good way to get into your "Zen thing".
It is not so much a game as a creative play set, like Meccano toys, Lincoln Logs, or Lego.
What's not to like about that?
But be warned: just try to stop playing it.
It took me a few minutes to figure out how to navigate the landscape, dig, create blocks and then destroy them, but not long enough to frustrate those with low attention spans.
The problem with Minecraft is simply this: It is so incredibly addictive that you can easily lose yourself playing a game that is at its essence nothing more than a virtual building-block set similar to the wood-block sets many of us used as infants and young children. Perhaps this is why it is so incredibly soothing. The music, too, is soothing, so the entire experience - blue, lightly-clouded sky, verdant fields - is engaging because it becomes a meditative exercise in a pointless activity. It's a good way to get into your "Zen thing".
It is not so much a game as a creative play set, like Meccano toys, Lincoln Logs, or Lego.
What's not to like about that?
But be warned: just try to stop playing it.
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